How Arrow Needs To Be More Like The Comics In Season 6, According To Stephen Amell

While Arrow has enjoyed years of popularity on The CW, there's no denying that the show's version of Green Arrow is different in many ways from the comic book hero. In fact, given the show's dark tone and Oliver Queen's personal struggles Oliver has endured for a decade at this point, you'll often find this Green Arrow compared to Batman. So when Arrow kicks off Season 6 later this year, series star Stephen Amell hopes that Oliver's growth over the last five seasons means that he'll start to embrace the character's social crusader roots from the printed page. Amell said:

I've said that it's very, very important that if Oliver doesn't take away lessons from Season 5 and doesn't keep doing the things that have led to this catastrophic event, the character stops being interesting to me. So I hope that part of that, in Season 6 and if we have seasons beyond that, I hope that part of that is we get back to a lot of the tenets that people recognize from the comics. And that of course is humor and a socially conscious, slightly liberal superhero.

It's difficult for Stephen Amell to talk about what's in store for Arrow Season 6 given how Season 5 concluded, but during his panel at the Portland Heroes & Villains Fan Fest this past weekend, the actor mentioned that he's talked with the show's producers about having Oliver Queen start to resemble his comic book counterpart more closely this upcoming season and beyond. The show has certainly adapted notable elements from the Green Arrow mythos over the seasons, but Amell is keen on moving even closer to the source material, specifically where Oliver's goals and personality are concerned. The actor continued:

The comics version, he has some really interesting qualities that make him unique, and I hope we get to explore more of those.

Although Green Arrow has been around since 1941, it was only when writer Denny O'Neil and artist Neal Adams started working on the character in the late 1960s that he was retooled as a leftist superhero who fought for the underprivileged and downtrodden. Arrow's version of Green Arrow has been fighting crime for half a decade and has certainly tried to help the citizens of Star City as its mayor, but it would be fascinating to see Stephen Amell's Oliver transition into the superhero that wants to help implement social change while shooting those arrows. With Arrow Season 6 marking a new era, now would be a great time to try to make this happen.

Arrow Season 6 will debut Thursday, October 12 at 8 p.m. EST/PST on The CW. While we wait for it and the other DC shows from that network to return (or in Black Lightning's case, begin), be sure to check out our summer TV premiere schedule to find something else to watch during the hiatus.